Picture this one. A mother and father sit on a beach on the Fourth of July with their two children, a boy, 6, and a girl, 4.

The parents are just on the other side of 40, still relatively young, still relatively attractive. Their children are beautiful: hazel-eyed, tawny and sparkling with precocious intelligence. They revel in the simple joys of sand and saltwater, wading into ocean waves that roll up in green cylinders before melting into white froth.

Lara Bazelon is a law professor, author, and contributing writer for Slate. Her op-eds and essays have also been published in the New York Times,Washington Post, and Politico, among other media outlets. Her book, Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction, will be published in the fall of 2018.